Turrets. Multiple engines. Gigantic single wheel landing gear. These are also things that I like.

I also like things that are not the best at what they do, but gain a lasting notoriety by being noisiest, ugliest, first and or biggest.

Call me a weirdo if you like. It is what it is...

I guess that is why I have a soft spot for the Short Stirling. She was the first four-engined "heavy" in Bomber Command, followed by the HP Halifax and the Iconic Lancaster. She was the largest of these three heavies and also carried (marginally) the largest "ordinary" bomb load (only the Lancaster carried a bigger war load). However, her relatively short wing span (thanks to the bloody politicians again!) made her unsuited to high altitude operations and she was quickly replaced in front line duties by the Halifax and Lanc.

So - the Stirling B.1. an elephantine beast of a machine that was actually quite agile once airborne. She was a monster to handle on the ground, however, and quite ill mannered during take off and landing. Look out for the swing on take off and for the wing drop on stall.

Also - please use the flaps as much as you can! Using a combo of pistons and hinges I have built a working example of Gouge flaps.

So - controls;

AG1 - Activate and arm nose turret. Use roll and pitch to orientate turret. With Camera 1/3
AG2 - Activate and arm tail turret. Use pitch and roll to orientate turret. With Camera 3/3
AG3 - Activate and arm top turret. Use pitch and roll to orientate turret. With Camera 2/3. Note that this turret can, in principle, shoot down the bomber to which it is attached. This is not advised, so take care.
AG4 - Drop bomb load
AG5 +vtol down - open bomb bay
AG6 +vtol down - drop flaps
AG7 - activate auto leveler. Can be used to keep her level during bombing runs and also handy for landings.
AG8 - lock and isolate / unlock and activate control surfaces.

Ok - the whole point of AG8 is to allow you to use pitch and roll to control the turrets, whilst keeping the kite straight and level so you can actually hit anything. The procedure being to deactivate AG8 before activating AG 1, 2, or 3. AG7 overrides this to a certain degree.

For those with performance related issues - maybe you have a potato for a smart phone (as I do) or the same tablet that the vikings used to carve out runes on, for example - I heartily recommend pitching this bomber (or, for example one of my Lancs) up against some of the fine Luftwaffe offerings from Zott (https://www.simpleplanes.com/u/Zott). They are not too part heavy and make a good counter part to my bombers.

Try to shoot them down! Try not to let them shoot you down!

But most importantly - have fun.